This weekend, I attended the United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW) Bargaining convention, their a leading union of health care professionals who are embarking on an 08′ campaign to leverage worker organizing, presidential politics and possibly the “netroots” community for systemic health care reform in America. In my neck of the woods, 2008 cannot come fast enough as the federal government is set to pull the plug on the life line of the historic King-Drew County Hospital in Watts, California.
Funding gaps, mismanagement and poor staff training throughout the hospital led to the failing of several reviews over the last three years.
And after failing the final check Friday morning, the emergency room was closed that evening and the remaining departments will flat line in two weeks. What will the underserved communities of South LA do when its residents need emergency care?
I have no answers but I’ll tell you what happened in 1964 before the hospital was built. The largely African American community of South Central LA had to go all the way across the sprawling town to receive basic medical services.
Fast forward to the summer of 1965 when the city erupted in the Watts riots due to the LAPD’s abusive behavior towards the city’s Blacks and the general lack of government services in South Central.
Getting the message, the government listened to community demands and built the county hospital, and named it after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., even before his death. The Charles Drew Medical University was attached years later. For decades, the school has produced the most African American doctors across the country.
Despite non-stop embarrassments at the vital facility, it served as fruitful training ground for the U.S. military who trained many of its own doctors there. Unfortunately, the violent communities served by the hospital were the closest thing to emulating the trauma care needed within the theatre of war.
While King-Drew hospital is a lost cause for now, it underscores the need for systemic change in the nation’s healthcare apparatus.
While many people believe unions only benefit their own members, I got news for you, UHW wants to reform American health care in a very simple way. It believes we must have a single-payer system that you find in the enlightened nations of planet earth.
The netroots may find agreement with this, but it may not understand what organized labor does.
The way to do it.
In short, UHW has a plan to combine organizing, new and current members to win contracts that establish improved standards across the industry including wage and benefits, job training, staffing levels and a voice in the decision-making process at your local health care facility. They understand that they are often the last line of defense to prevent corporations from making profit based decisions about someone’s health care.
It also understands that its members must participate in politics to ensure they can influence the winner take all elections across the nation. In California, all polls show residents want universal health coverage, but deeper research reveals that most voters are white men who have health coverage and are comfortable with the current system, giving HMO lobbyists a great partner in its quest to keep the bad times rolling.
So UHW is directing resources towards changing the voting electorate so that real reform can be possible.
Combine all of this with the 2008 presidential elections and you can create a climate conducive to great change. Until offline communities will continue to tread water through a tidal wave of HMO care and the netroots may continue to harp with no results.
The path is the way, lets do it together.
Elliott Petty is a blogger for couragecampaign.org and this blog is crossposted at openleft.com and Mydd.com
The resolutions passed by the California Democratic Party at the July e-board meeting are now